TURNS 88 ON TUESDAY
As is now normal, Francis, who turns 88 on Tuesday, left his plane on arrival in Corsica via an elevator and used a wheelchair while greeting officials on the tarmac.
During a brief ride in an open-air popemobile from the airport, the pope waved at crowds on the street and appeared on good form, though he still has a small bruise on his chin, the result of what the Vatican described as a minor fall in his bedroom last week.
Corsica, famed for its steep, mountainous terrain and as the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte, is the fourth largest island in the Mediterranean. It is one of France’s poorest regions, where about 20 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line, according to government figures.
The Vatican estimates that about 81 per cent of Corsica’s population of 356,000 is Catholic. There are 83 priests on the island and some 30 Catholic nuns, it says.
Francis, originally from Argentina and the first pope from the Americas, has travelled widely around the Mediterranean since becoming pontiff in 2013, visiting Malta, the Greek island of Lesbos, and the Italian island of Lampedusa.
